Community’s positive response to prank is lighting up social media
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SAINT ANTHONY – South Fremont is a place of integrity and class, a place where the administration does not tolerate unsportsmanlike conduct.
This was a message sent to us from an EastIdahoNews.com user Saturday morning after the South Fremont Football team discovered their logo on Bridge Street had been vandalized by the opposing team after Friday night’s game against the Sugar-Salem Diggers.
“The band painted our logo in the middle of the street,” South Fremont Football Coach Chad Hill tells EastIdahoNews.com. “It’s something we’re proud of and we want to make sure it’s red.”
But what the team and other members of the community saw Saturday was not red, but blue. What people suspect is that the Sugar-Salem Diggers had painted blue over the red ‘S’ in South Fremont after winning Friday night’s game 27-13.
Sugar-Salem jumped out early in the second quarter to gain a 20-0 lead. South Fremont was able to gain a 13-point score by the end of the third quarter. The Cougars couldn’t quite close the gap in the fourth quarter before Sugar-Salem scored a touchdown in the last three minutes to win the game.
“They ended up on top but we have no shame in how we played. We played very well. We played with one of the best teams in the state,” says South Fremont Team Captain Jordan Dodge.
After playing a good game, the team and members of the community were shocked to learn what the other team had allegedly done.
“To see (the logo) vandalized definitely fired up a few emotions in people,” Hill says.
“We were shocked. We never expected that to happen,” says Jordan.
Rather than retaliate in anger, the team and other members of the community decided to come together and clean it up.
“There were people driving by cheering us on and proud that we were taking care of it,” Hill says. “We live in a great place and our community is proud of our school.”
Jordan says he and his teammates have been taught since the fourth grade to practice good sportsmanship. He says Coach Hill has instilled in them a desire to be “above the line.”
“Whether that’s on the field or off, we’re going to respond above the line,” says Jordan. “We’re just going to be the best we can be and we can’t control anything else.”
The phrase “Above the line” is the team’s motto and something Hill has been focusing on with the team this season.
“We just want to make sure we’re doing our part (at school) to give (the community) something to be proud of,” says Hill. “We’ve been trying to instill into our kids that we don’t need to retaliate. We’ll just take care of our own and apply what we’ve been trying to teach.”
Hill says the clean up effort was finished by 10:00 Saturday morning in about 30 minutes. The team is now gearing up for Thursday night’s game at home against Teton.